Underwater Street

Having a drink on the coach

We went on a nursery trip to Underwater Street in Liverpool today, a play and activity center.

Bee has been showing a lot of interest in buses recently and when she sees one asks "boo rye mama?" - bus ride mama? We've not had the opportunity recently so she was very excited today to be going on a coach. We had to meet at nursery first to be organised into groups and have the required safety talks but soon enough it was time to leave. Bee's nursery had about 90 children on this trip so it was a little like organised chaos with lots going on plenty of noise. I was a little worried about how Bee would cope but she did champion.

After a half hour coach journey we arrived in Liverpool and Bee was very ready to get off the bus, she hadn't enjoyed admiring the beautiful Liverpool architecture as I had! Underwater Street is right on Liverpool Docks, in the building next to the famous Liver Building, in the lower level.

Bee was very happy to see lots of boats floating in the docks and it's occurred to me that a trip around the docks on something like The Yellow Duckmarine might be a good idea, or maybe even the famous Mersey Ferry!

On arrival we congregated for another quick safety talk and then the children were all turned loose to play. It was like setting off a bomb, kids fair exploded out of the meeting and scattered far and wide across the center. Bee was so beside herself with excitement that she couldn't decide what to do first. I knew there was a pretend shop so I led her in that direction.

Bee loves to shop, she had a ball. She even, without prompting, interacted with the little girl manning the till and they packed Bee's shopping together!

As much as she loves shopping Bee couldn't maintain her focus on the one activity for long, there was just too much to do! Next it was on to the small ball pool with the diggers, then the water play, the sand pit, the dressing up.... it was crazy but so much fun!

We stopped in the middle of the trip for a bite to eat and a breather. Recently Bee has been enjoying raw carrot and it's lovely to see her munching away on something that, not so long ago, it would have been unimaginable for her to eat.
 

In the dressing up room Bee chose a lovely sparkly dress then proudly wore it round the center for the rest of the session. I was a little worried about whether she'd make a fuss about taking it off but she was a star.

She had great fun in the water play, pouring water from container to container and then into a water wheel, she spent by far the most time here.  

Water play

It's me!

One of my favourite moments was watching Bee discover herself on the TV in the 'newsroom'. She would see the back of herself on the TV then turn to find the camera, before realising that if she did that she couldn't see herself! It was very funny and very cute!

Painting a passenger window

In Underwater Street there's also a Mini, a full-sized Mini car. It's in it's own section and it's for painting on. Clearly the staff don't clean the painting from it that years of children have done and so it's a wonderful, multi-coloured, car-shaped blob that kids can paint all over. It almost blends into it's surroundings there so much paint everywhere! Bee loved it!

By the time the session was over Bee was more than ready to go home. She's been ill recently and so much activity had really tired her out. It was harder to get her interested in the view out of the windows on the way home, she mostly made her tired, moaning noise and chewed on her Peppa Pig toy. By the time we reached Warrington and then made it home poor little Bee was falling asleep. I put her to bed early, just after 5:30pm and she was out like a light.

We had a wonderful day and Bee coped much better than I thought she would with all the children, activity and noise. She joined in with painting, making, building and climbing. She constantly surprises me with what she's capable of.

Colouring Pages!

Now Bee is growing up I love to do crafty things with her and one of our easiest and most frequent is colouring. When Bee was tiny our first forays into wielding a crayon involved a pad I'd gone out and bought 'specially at Mothercare, I'd been so excited at getting Bee started. Sadly for me she really didn't seem interested, crayons were clearly for chewing on, not drawing.

As she grew it became easier to encourage her to scribble with the crayon rather than eat it, although her attention-span was very short. The paper just wasn't holding her interest and, thinking back, it's not surprising. To give her something to focus on I went out and bought some colouring books with large, simple pictures and it became useful for me to focus Bee's attention on individual parts of the picture: "let's colour the dolly's shoes" etc.

Bee has a very short attention span across the board, not just with colouring so I was pleased when the colouring books seemed to improve matters a little. Still, it wasn't enough. I could maybe get 2 or 3 minutes of really focused attention off Bee before she was emptying the crayon box and wandering away from the table, looking for something else to play with. It's important to me that Bee starts to master simple skills like holding a crayon correctly and control techniques. They are things that will become neccessary as she gets older and we don't want her attention problems to prevent her from achieving. 

One day last week inspiration struck. At home we have a digital photo frame that flashes up with a new picture every 5 seconds or so and Bee loves to sit and watch the pictures change, telling me who's on each picture. One morning, while sitting together and watchingt he frame it occured to me that the pictures Bee likes best are of people she knows. She could look at pictures of herself and the people close to her for ages and not get as easily distracted as with other things.

So I got myself on Photoshop and here is the result:

 

I made 5 different ones in total, all with Bee and various combinations of her loved ones. They were easy to photocopy from there to keep her with a constant supply. So far she loves them and we've had great fun colouring Mama's nose in blue and Daddy's nose in green, Grandma's ears in red and Bee's mouth in purple! So far these personal colouring sheets have held Bee's attention for the longest and so far I've got a good ten minutes of colouring out of her before she starts to lose focus, a record!

If anyone would like to know how these are made:

• Open your picture in Photoshop
• Choose 'filter' from the menus at the top
• From there go into 'sketch' and choose 'photocopy'
• This should open a new box where you can change a few levels about to get it looking how you want.
• Save as a JPG and print!

This doesn't work well with all pictures, some are too busy for them to colour out with large white spaces and can be very black so you might need to try a few different ones.

I've noticed since using these that Bee's accuracy seems to be getting better. To the untrained eye it may look like she's just randomly placing scribbles across the page but if you ask her to colour a specific part of the picture you'll find the scribbles are centered on that part. I'm really thrilled with that, it's one small step of progress along the road towards pen-control. These personalised colouring pages have really worked for us so far and I'm going to keep printing different ones so Bee has a constant stream of pictures to keep her interest.

Glorious Gloop!

 

This afternoon Bee and I have been further broadening her sensory horizons and playing in gloop! We haven't tried gloop before but I saw it on the shelf at Toys'r'Us and thought "why not?" It's designed to put in the bath but I thought that may be just a little too much sensory overload for Bee and bring on a meltdown so we started small, although still with a bath...

To start with I gave Bee some of her plastic drumsticks and we did mixing, slowly building her confidence by allowing her to interact with the gloop without touching it. She got braver as the activity progressed, handling things that had gloop on them. She enjoyed digging out gloop with her spade and filling a little bucket, then pouring it all back in and laughing as it went splat back in the baby bath!

After leaving Bee to lead the play for a while I took the tools away from her and tried hiding her little Makka Pakka and Iggle Piggle in the mixture, hoping she would be brave enough to put her hand in to retrieve them. She tried, touching the surafce with her finger but couldn't quite work up the courage to place her whole hand in. She asked me for the tools back, wanting to dig out the toys but I re-focused her back on the bath and showed her how to poke at them with her fingers. It took repeated encouragement but she eventually uncovered enough to feel confident picking them out, Makka Pakka first then Iggle Piggle.

As the session wore on Bee became more confident in touching the gloop although still had some small moments when it touched the palms of her hands, which brought on some frantic hand-washing motions until she felt it had gone. Afterwards I took her upstairs for a bath to wash off all the gloop and we had just as much fun doing splashing and washing her doll!

 

Overall we had lots and lots of fun and the gloop went much more sucessfully than I'd anticipated. We explored texture and smell (mmm cotton candy!) and, in Bee's case, taste too! I'm going to continue with the gloop in a bowl for a few more sessions and then *maybe* try a shallow bath. We'll see how it goes.

 

 

Growing Shoots!

We've had so much torrential rain recently that I've been very worried all the seeds Bee and I planted would be drowned and not grow at all. So I was thrilled just over a week ago to see little green shoots poking out of the compost! Bee got very excited about them and keeps telling me "pea hide mama, pea hide", meaning "there's peas outside!" Bee is very, very partial to peas!

The flourishing planter

Our other plants are also doing well, the tomato and carrots seeds are shooting up and soon I'm going to have to re-pot everything as the herd needs thinning! I could have avoided that if I'd been a little more experienced in growing veg but no matter, it gives Bee another sensory opportunity to get handling the compost and digging.

Carrots and tomatos

A few days ago I'd nipped to B&Q for a few bits I needed and had a quick gander at the outdoors section while I was there. To my amazement they were selling off veggies that had wilted a bit for between 5p to 50p! How could I pass that up??

So I left armed with what I'd originally gone for plus some onion and chilli plants for Bee to plant. Sadly since then it's done nothing but rain on our free days so they're still sitting in their little plastic tubs in the garden but I'm looking forward to getting out there again with Bee.

Feeding Progress

We had a meeting with Bee's speech therapist and dietician this week, which I was really looking forward to as I feel like we're stalled with the feeding progress, or lack thereof. Bee will eat almost anything, from chocolate to raw carrot, the only thing she shies from is the more 'messy' food like rice pudding and yoghurt. We know this stems from her tactile defensiveness so don't push her too much with it. While we're thrilled with Bee's varied taste, our main concern is that she just picks at food and doesn't eat any substantial amount of it. This has created a little bit of a impasse with eating, in that we can get her to eat almost anything but not enough to sustain her, so we're still very dependant on the mic-key button. Of course the obvious answer is that Bee isn't hungry. She's fed 200mls of milk down her tube every 3 hours, that's a lot for such a little tummy, it's no wonder she only picks at the solid food we offer her. To be honest I'm not entirely sure Bee even knows what hunger feels like.

I relayed our concerns to Bee's therapists and they agreed it sounded like Bee wasn't hungry. The speech therapist said that what we needed to do was create hunger in Bee which sounded like a good idea to me! So she suggested a plan which I'm hoping is going to be the turning point for Bee's eating habits:

Currently Bee has five 200ml feeds a day between the time she gets up and the time she goes to bed. During that time I also offer her breakfast, dinner and tea with snacks inbetween. The new plan will involve a change of milk from her regular Nutrini to a high-energy version. This change will help accomodate a cut from five 200ml feeds a day to just three. Two of those will take place once she is asleep in bed, with the third being mid-morning. On the solid side of things we will continue to offer Bee regular meal and snack times.

So the new routine will be as follows:

• On waking Bee will be offered breakfast. She'll be allowed 30 minutes at the table with the food and then it'll be taken away.
• Mid-morning Bee will have a 200ml milk feed and be offered a snack which she is free to move around with.
• Dinnertime Bee will be offered a meal at the table and again given 30 minutes with it.
• Mid-afternoon will be time for snack, which Bee will be free to move around with.
• Tea will be at the table again for 30 minutes.
• After Bee is asleep at bedtime she will be given two 200ml feeds of milk.

Aside from the lesser quantity of milk, the new routine is more structured. I think this will help Bee start to understand food as a sustenence than a toy or a game, which I think she does at the minute. I'm really happy with this new plan, Bee's speech therapist is always brilliant and has never steered us wrong yet. I really hope this is going to be the start of weaning Bee off the mic-key button.

Playtime at the Park

This week we had a lovely warm-but-not-hot, rain-free afternoon and so we took Bee off to the park! We've not been in a little while as the weather's been pants and we've had lots of activities to do at home.

Bee had lots of fun toddling from structure to structure, never stopping on one thing long. She's a real flitter is my girl, she reminds me of her nickname-sake: a bumblebee.

One thing this afternoon outing highlighted was Bee's increasing tolerance of grass. When we arrived she hadn't wanted to walk across the field to reach the park as the grass was slightly long and she could feel it touching her ankles and lower legs. She was insistent that I or her Grandma held her hand for reassurance. But despite her concern and obvious discomfort she made it across with no tears or tantrums.

The park is mainly rubberised surface and grass, with paths leading from structure to structure. We tried to encourage Bee to take the shortcuts across the grass to the next play thing rather than the longer path routes but she was only comfortable doing that whilst holding someone's hand. However, as the afternoon wore on she seemed to become more accoustumed with the feeling of the grass and braver with it. By the end of the afternoon Bee was tackling the grass herself without any need of encouragement or reassurance.

That's my girl!

Poorly Bee

I've got a very poorly Bee today, she's had a lot of sickness and pretty much just wants to cry. Towards the afternoon I was able to settle her with some CBeebies and her beloved Mr Tumble. Hopefully she'll pick up after a good night's sleep.

Garden Music

Recently I've been trying to encourage Bee to be more confident outside the house with different activities, hoping that they'll build her tolerance of different surfaces and textures. We've dug in the compost, planted flowers and seeds and played with the garden hose. Next on the agenda was an activity to incorporate Bee's love of music with encouraging her outside: a tin can musical instrument! 

I'd been saving tin cans with the aim of string them together to create a sort-of wind chime/xylophone instrument that Bee could hit using her drum sticks or just bash with her hands so they clinked together. 

Of course before stringing it up in the garden our first job was to paint them!

I let Bee loose with various bright paints and some paintbrushes and she really enjoyed making marks on the tins and 'mixing' the paint in the bowls. I had to encourage her to paint the sides, she only wanted to do the tops. I found she was more willing to paint the sides when I placed the tin on a bottle of paint.

The following day, once the tins had dried I used a nail and a hammer to punch a hole in the top of each one before spraying them with a clear acrylic to make them weather-proof. Once they were again dry I threaded twine through the holes, strung them all together and hung them across one of our fence panels.

Bee has had great fun making 'music' with her new tin can instrument and I'm hoping to make a few more garden musical items to add as summer wears on. If this rain ever goes away!

Nursery Meltdown

Bee loves nursery. Loves it. Every single session when I drop her off she toddles straight in. No clinging to me or crying. I even have to remind her to say good bye sometimes.

Bee's nursery is split into four rooms: the sensory room, the carpeted 'play' room, the 'messy' room where all the arts & crafts are done and the outdoor/indoor room, which is essentially part of the garden with a roof and roller doors that can be lifted up. Our usual entrance is into the carperted 'play' room. We have the same routine each time: coat off and on Bee's peg, find her picture on the board and place it on the 'I'm Here Today' board, kiss for mama and off she goes!

When I dopped her off for today's session her teacher was waiting at the door to the 'messy' room. "We're using this entrance today as we're going to the park" - oooo wonderful! Bee loves the park! We walked through into the room and I crouched down to give her a kiss bye bye. The minute I bent down I could tell by her face something was wrong. Her little mouth was starting to turn down at the corners and she had that look in her eye. She put her arms around my neck and clung like she hasn't since she first started nursery, and I could feel her starting to cry.

It was the routine. The routine had changed. We come through the wrong door, into the wrong room. There was no peg for her coat in this room or board with her picture on it. Her teacher came over and I explained the problem, we decided the best way to deal with it was to take Bee out and back in through the route she was accustomed to. She readily released my neck and held my hand as I asked if she'd like to go and find her picture on the board. The tears stopped almost immediately and she willingly accompained me out of the room and down the corridor to the door of the usual room. We had no coat to hang on the peg (the weather is scorching at the moment) but we had her nursery bag to place in the box and her picture to find on the board. With those tasks two accomplished Bee happily walked into the usual room and didn't look back.

We're starting to notice these little autistic-type moments more and more and they can have an impact on our day-to-day life. We're still struggling between accomodating them and encouraging her to be more flexible. Today I felt it was better to accomodate and ensure she had a good session at nursery, than force the different entrance on her when it was only a one-off.

Manic Monday

Who knew an envelope could provide so much fun!

The Start of the Statement

This week we had our initial appointment with the educational psychologist to start the statementing process for Bee. It was something we'd been looking forward to and dreading in equal measures.

Our appointment was scheduled for the afternoon, after the educational psych. had spent some time with Bee in the morning. Thankfully Foz was off work so we were able to attend together. It can feel a little overwhelming sometimes attending these kind of things on my own while Foz is at work so I'm always grateful when we can do it together.

For those unfamiliar a statement of special educational needs to a document setting out what your child's needs are and what assistance the council/school is legally bound to provide to ensure that your child reaches their full learning potential. We are very lucky that Bee will be statemented automatically, many parents have to fight to get that for their child.

The ed. psych was lovely, very friendly and eager to reassure us that she's on our side and wants to help us get everything that Bee needs. She began by asking us all kinds of questions like how we felt Bee was doing, what areas we felt she needed assistance in, where she was excelling, what things she liked to do, what she didn't like to do etc. Our answer was, of course, that she is flying. Since starting nursery she seems to have improved in every area. She's more confident, communicates more, mobility is better, the list goes on. I found myself having to forcibly stop myself from going on and on about how fantastic she's doing and how proud we are.

Then it came time for the ed. psych's turn. She asked if we minded her giving us some observations she'd made about Bee during her time with her that morning. She was quick to reassure us that her observations were made during a 'snapshot' of Bee's time, there'd be things that Bee would or wouldn't do during the session that she may or may not do at home so we were to take everything with a pinch of salt. 

She began by telling us what a sweet, pleasant, bright and curious little girl Bee is and that we should be very proud of her (which we are!) Looking back it feels a little like that was the sweetener before the bad news.

Next came the observations:

• Bee interacted brilliantly with adults, was able to engage them and knew how to make her feelings/desires clear through language, sign or gesture. But Bee did not engage other children in play. She would play next to other children, but not directly with them. Occasionally she would become interested in something another child was doing and would approach to have a look, but would not make an attempt to join in.
• Bee would sit during group time and listen/respond if an adult was talking to her directly. Once the adult had moved on to talk to another child, or to the group as a whole Bee's attention wandered and she didn't appear to process the information that was being given.
• Once given a task to perform, in this instance filling a bucket with water from the water pump and using that to fill the water play table, Bee could begin to carry it out but struggled to complete. She seemed to forget what she was supposed to be doing and needed a lot of repeated prompts to carry out the whole activity.
• Although very confident walking on smooth flat surfaces Bee was observed to need assistance with mobility during use of the water pump, which stands at the top of a slight incline. She managed well by herself towards the pump but on the walk down the incline she asked to hold the hand of a staff member for support.

From there the ed. psych was able to make some initial recommendations for the statement:

• Bee has severe needs with communication. She has a handful of Makaton signs and some language but the words are unformed and difficult to understand.
• Bee has severe needs with mobility. Although she is able to walk unaided on flat, smooth surfaces Bee struggles with any uneven surface or inclines. She doesn't watch where she steps and will step off edges without realising. She needs an adult with her for supervision at all times.
• Bee has severe needs with learning. When engaging with one adult in a direct conversation Bee will listen and process information she is given. When that conversation encompasses more children Bee struggles to engage in the same way and can't seem to process information she receives. This will have a massive impact on her in classroom learning.

This report for us was pretty devastating. We'd been so proud of Bee and so pleased with the progress that she'd made we'd gone into that meeting a little naively, thinking that the educational psychologist would be equally impressed and tell us that Bee is perfect and would do fantastic in a mainstream school. To hear the words "severe needs" repeatedly was a bit of a shock to the system. Bee is our first child and I think we forget sometimes that although she is doing really well for what we'd always been told to expect, she's not doing so well in comparison to other children her age.

In September Bee is due to go up to 15 hours a week at nursery from 6 hours. We'd been considering our options for that: whether to keep her entirely at the special needs nursery, split the time between a special needs and a mainstream or move her over to a mainstream nursery entirely. We'd been leaning towards splitting the 15 hours between her current special needs nursery and a mainstream, the idea being that she'd get the 1-on-1 she needs at the SN nursery and the 'school' experience at the mainstream. We had been hoping that Bee would have achieved enough to attend mainstream school in September 2013, even if she needed extra assistance to do so.
Since this meeting though we'd reassessed our thoughts on the matter. It would seem that a SN nursery is best for Bee at the moment and we will probably make the decision to keep her there for the full 15 hours in September. We want Bee to achieve her full potential and if that means a special needs nursery and eventually a special needs school then that's fine with us. The last thing we want is for her to struggle and be branded a 'failure' in any mainstream setting.

For more information on Statements: http://bit.ly/aeh4YB

A Walk in the Park

This weekend Bee and I spent a lovely afternoon on Sankey Valley Canal with my Mum and her dogs. The sun shone down and, despite the dogs, Bee did lots of walking. Her confidence around them is getting better, although she's still very afraid if they come too close and hysterical if they bark.

We did lots of walking and helped Bee collect found objects to put in her little In the Night Garden tin. It's a great game to help combat her tactile defensiveness.

That may well have been the last of the meagre sunshine for this year so I'm glad we got out and enjoyed it!

Nursery

Well, we've done it! Bethany has survived her first session at nursery. And her second, third and fourth! Equally as impressive: I survived them too!

Heading into nursery

Her first session was only an hour long and my Mum and I, who I had took along as Foz had to work, were able to stay. Bee was able to play with the nursery assistants while I did a lot of form-filling and boring stuff like that. Every so often Bee would come scooting over with her walker, just to check I was still about then she'd scoot off again, eager to find the next new toy! It was a lovely session, the nursery introduce one child at a time so we had the full attentions of the staff while we were there. They were able to start getting to know Bee and we were able to get to know them, very important for a parent like me who's never left her child with a stranger.

The nursery is wonderful. It's a long, low building split into 3 sections. At one end is the private nursery, in the middle is the mainstream nursery and at the other end is the special needs provision nursery. Bee's nursery is split into two rooms: a carpeted room with the main bulk of toys plus a kiddie play kitchen, reading corner and such. There there's the craft room with lino floors, tables and chairs plus my favourite part: an interactive projection on the floor that responds to the childrens touch. There's also a dedicated sensory room that the children have free rein of and an outdoor area that is completely covered from the elements and has sand & water tables, ride-ons etc. Each of the three connected nurseries has a similar garden of their own and all three open out on to the main garden, which runs the length of the entire building. It's a massive expanse of grass with winding pathways marked out like roads and, in the middle, a giant sand pit with a huge play structure. In the back corner is a small, innocuous-looking shed which turns out is the 'den-building shed', full of chairs, sheets, brooms and other vital den-building supplies. What more reasons do I need to love this place!?

Our hour seemed to pass very quickly and by the time it was up Bee was not ready to leave, I had to bribe her out to the car with promises of Mr Tumble when she got home!

The second visit was scheduled to be a longer one, an hour & a half in length and this time there were other children there. I was supposed to leave her for a short time during the session but only as far as the staff room for a cuppa, just far enough that she couldn't see me but I was still on hand incase she got hysterical. There's one-way mirrors so I was able to watch what Bee was up to without her being able to see me. Turns out she had a blast and barely noticed I was missing. I was so proud of my confident little girl although a small treacherous part of me felt a little disappointed that she hadn't cried and clung like a limpet around my neck.

That second session went so well that I was actually quite looking forward to the third, her first full 3 hour session when I would bite the bullet and go home. Although her behaviour so far showed all the signs that I wasn't going to have any problems. So I was surprised when we pulled into the carpark and Bee started to cry and say "no" over and over. Here was what I had dreaded: guilt-inducing hysterics on nursery drop-offs. She wouldn't walk into nursery, wouldn't take her coat off, wouldn't allow me to put her down, wouldn't look at any of the toys.... here was my disappointment about not feeling wanted the week before coming back to bite me in the ass. After a few minutes of crying and telling me "no, home" I managed to encourage Bee to sit next to me by some toys. One of her teachers came over to play with us and as Bee's attention turned slowly from me to her I managed to sneak away. By 'away' I mean outside of the room to sit and watch her through the one-way mirrors. It took all of 20 seconds for her to notice I was gone and the hysterical crying resumed. This time interspersed with "mama home". Oh the guilt.

I've never felt anything like it, like I was abandoning her. Even though I would only be in the next room I kept thinking how it must appear to Bee: like I'd just left her with complete strangers and not coming back. What a bewildering experience it must for children when their parents drop them off and walk away.

Thankfully Bee's teacher managed to calm her down with a variety of distraction techniques and I went to sit in the staff room with a fortifying cup of tea. Every so often someone would come in and let me know that she was ok and play with this toy or that toy or, at one point, in the sensory room. Occassionally I would sneak a peep through the one-way mirrors at what she was up to but I tried to keep this to a minumum. Bee had settled and was playing happily, I needed to do my own version of the same. It was decided between myself and the staff that we would shorten Bee's time at nursery for that session, give her the chance to realise I would come back and not leave her there. She was all smiles when I appeared, shouting "mama" and showing me the doll she'd found to play with. What a wonderful feeling when your little one is so full of excitement from their day, makes all those tears worth it. So although not a completely sucessful third session it finshed better than it began.

The day of session four dawned and I tried to prepare Bee early, so when we started getting ready for nursery it wasn't a shock. "We're going to nursery today honey, going to play with all the toys..." etc etc. Each time I mentioned it I got a very firm "no", not a good sign. Still, it had to be done. So 12:30 found us pulling into the nursery carpark. There was no tears this time although a lot of "no" in a distinctly wobbly voice and she wouldn't walk either, had to be carried in. We had the same battle over getting her coat off, by the time I succeeded you'd have thought hanging a coat on a peg was the most exciting game ever!

Bee's teacher took her hand and led her into the room, moaning though she was at least it wasn't outright hysterics. I followed them in as Bee kept checking I was behind her, I wanted her to settle before I left. It wasn't long before she was engrossed in the toys so again I snuck away. She began to cry when she noticed I'd gone but it only took a matter of a minute for the staff to settle her and she was happy again. This time I felt secure enough to leave her, so I came home for a cup of tea. The staff had assured me that they would ring if Bee became too upset and we agreed I would return after an hour to check on her and see if it was suitable to leave her for the remainder of the 3 hour session. When I popped back I could see though the one-way mirror that Bee was quite happily playing with the toys and chattering to herself so, without letting her see me, I snuck away again and returned home for the remaining hour, comfortable that she was being looked after and not distressed at all.

Our next session is tomorrow and I'm hoping that Bee continues to improve on the drop-off. I know she loves the time at nursery - this past saturday she specifically asked to go, she just needs to get over that initial separation anxiety. I think her nursery is going to be a wonderful place for Bee to grow and develop. Their facilities are second-to-none and the staff are so supportive and inclusive. The children from all three nurseries get to spend time together through the sessions so Bee will get to mix with children of different ages and abilities. I'm so excited about the next two years she will spend there.

Letters

We've had a couple of letters of importance recently. We usually get a few a week addressed to 'The Parents/Guardians of Bethany F....', they tend to be appointment letters, or summaries of recent reviews. The first we received last week, however, was different. It was a letter from the nursery Bee will start attending in September. We'd be waiting on confirmation of the hours Bee will attend along with her start date, and this letter was it.

Thursday 8th September will be Bee's first day at nursery.

Technically it won't actually be a day. We'll attend with her for an hour in the afternoon, she'll be able to play while we chat to her teachers. The following Tuesday Bee will attend for 90 minutes and we'll have to leave her, although will be able to stay in the building and have a cuppa just in case she doesn't settle well.

After that it's a 'play it by ear' scenario depending on how Bee adapts to the new environment, which I'm so happy about. She scheduled for 3 hours every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon but we're under no pressure to force her induction and can take as long as we (and she) needs to settle in. I'm very conscious that my girl will still only be two years old when she starts, she's not three until 28th September. She still just a baby and I worry for her all the time. I know in my heart though that she is completely ready for nursery and is going to absolutely fly. I am going to miss her terribly, for nearly three years it's just been me and my girl every day and when she's been away from me she's been with family that we love and trust. For her to be in the care of strangers who don't know her behaviours, quirks, mispronunciations, Makaton signs... will be wrenching. What if she can't make herself understood? What if she's lonely and left out by the other children? What if she's picked on?

Our second interesting letter of the week was an invitation to group speech therapy. Bee has had speech therapy for both communication and feeding since 9 months old but they've always been one-on-one appointments. I didn't even know group speech therapy existed. But there was the letter, inviting us for six sessions over the course of six weeks, every Tuesday morning.

We've had our first session and when we arrived I was pleased that the group was only small, six children in total. Bee is the youngest of the group and seems to be the most behind in terms of speech development. Despite her attempts to spend the session crawling round instead of sitting and participating, we had a lovely time. Mostly singing songs and playing words games, choosing specific items etc. We have another this Tuesday and only time will tell if they are beneficial to Bee.

Thankful Thursday

♥ sunny days ♥ Vimto ♥ physiotherapists ♥ days off work ♥ dry shampoo ♥ cups of tea ♥ my Grandparents ♥ Mr Tumble ♥ Bee's walker ♥

Thankful Thursday

Sometimes I can lose sight of the good things in life and get a little bogged down in the negative. So to try and balance that each week I'm going to ackowledge the things that have made me feel grateful.

So this week I am thankful for:

♥ Orchids ♥ Vimto bon bons ♥ cups of tea in large mugs ♥ birthdays ♥ rollercoasters ♥ Pom Bears ♥ Twitter ♥ good friends ♥ classic films ♥ blogging ♥

It's been a very busy week this week and I'll hopefully catch up in the next few days.

Update!

I must apologise for being such a lax blogger of late, I started researching my family tree and have found it so absorbing.

Bee has made some good progress of late. She has a new word: please, which sounds like "pease", or sometimes "pease-a" and has also learn the Makaton sign to go with it. Bee has also started to copy words and phrases she hears us say. Whilst trying to encourage Bee to say "Gem, where are you?" she managed "Dem, ee a ooo". Wonderful!

We're hitting a little snag with her language development though, as we've discovered Bee is using similar sounds for different words. For example, "ba" or "boor" can mean ball, bag, bed or book. Sometimes it takes a little detective work to find what she actually means and Bee can get frustrated. It's something I hope to raise with her SLT at our next appointment.

Physically Bee continues to develop slowly but surely. Still crawling and cruising strongly and now starting to take small, unaided steps away from the furniture. Every day we see Bee get a little bit further each time, although I think walking is still a long way off, her balance is quite poor. Her longest walk has been 6 steps before she lost her balance and fell, a huge achievement!

We're still waiting for the walker from the physiotherapist. I've rang twice and left messages but no reply or returned phone call yet. Monday will bring yet another attempt and each time I'm getting more irate at the lack of communication. Even just a polite "not in stock yet" would suffice, just so I know what's happening. Each day that passes is another day of restrictions and limited ventures.

Talking of restrictions: Bee is reaching an age where it's time to bake cakes and help cook the tea, yet she's way off being able to stand on a chair at the kitchen units. Her lack of balance and co-ordination just wouldn't allow her to do that safely, may never allow her to do that safely. We've been looking for something to solve our problem and came across this:

Little Helper FunPod

It's expensive, £112 on the official website and the cheapest I can find is Amazon at £95. They are supposed to suit ages 1-6 years and, with Bee being a little on the small side for her age and only 2-years-old, I think we'd get good value-for-money. I'd be interested to know if anyone has tried a similar product?

Enjoying some of her beloved Pom Bears

On the food front Bee continues to make small progress. Her ability to bite and chew food is slowly getting better although she still only consumes tiny amounts. We're certainly a long way from having the mic-key button removed. Bee still refuses to touch anything 'messy', much less eat it. So we're sticking to solids for now, despite the SLT's insistence that we start with puree. She doesn't have to feed Bee day-in-and-day-out and Bee enjoys her solids *a lot*.

We've been a little quiet on the appointments front recently but we have Occupational Therapy coming up on Tuesday. I'm not looking forward to it. Since discovering that the OT service in Warrington does not provide one-on-one help for children with sensory needs I've not felt very charitable towards Bee's therapist. I know it isn't her fault, decisions like that happen way above her, but she is the face of a service that is letting us down and I'm still angry.

F:UN - Families United

This morning we attended the Saturday Fun Club of Families United, a fab charity in my hometown for children with special/additional needs.

Taken from their website:

The aim of F:UN is to provide children with sensory, physical and associated disabilities the opportunity to interact with other families and professionals, enabling learning and social support for all.

It's a wonderful organisation, providing a twice-monthly fun club, frequent day trips and lots of support for parents of children with disabilities.

Bee and I went with our lovely friends Clare and Isla and we had a great time! Lots of toys and fun, plus some guitar-led singing and dancing. The girls are exhausted!

But the best thing about this morning was when we sat down around a table for the children to have a snack. When I attached Bee's feeding tube nobody stared, there were no slightly askance looks or pointing and whispering. To be honest, the gastrostomy feeding tube was ignored. And it was wonderful.

http://wwwi.familiesunited.org.uk/